How do I get rid of the * (red asterisk) of mandatory questions?

In 'LimeSurvey 2.x ,' the red asterisk of mandatory questions is set within the template.css file ("asterisk" class). To hide it:

Open the template editor

Create a copy of the template you wish to modify

Select the "template.css" file and search for the asterix class

Add the following line at the end of the asterix class".asterisk {display: none;}".

Save template.css

Clear your browser cache so that the edited template.css is reloaded and not taken from cache.

How can I embed a flash file?

First go to Global settings and deactivate the XSS-filter. Please also read up in the implications deactivating that filter. The following steps won't work if the filter is active.

Navigate to the place in your survey where you want insert your Flash file. This can be anywhere where you can use the integrated HTML editor, for example in questions, subquestions, answers, survey welcome/end text and many more.

On the full-screen editor tool-bar you will find a little button with a Flash symbol. Click on it. A dialog will open.

In this dialog you can give either the path to an existing Flash file somewhere OR you click the 'Browse server' button.

If you clicked the 'Browse server' button you will be presented with a file browser and on the bottom an file upload field. Choose now an existing file or upload a file first.

That's it! If you find this description incomplete please update it accordingly.

How do I create a survey which is open to everyone?

Advice - to be updated

You can now publish the link to the survey on your website/blog and everyone can take the survey without restrictions.

How can I stop the system from sending confirmation emails

If you are using tokens and a participant fills out the survey, a confirmation email is sent to his/her email address. If you don't want this message to be sent just delete the whole confirmation email subject and message. You have to switch to source code mode to be able to delete all the text. Save the empty message and no confirmation emails should be sent anymore.

Hard- and Software requirements

What limitations does LimeSurvey have...

...regarding speed

There is no existing speed limit on LimeSurvey. It all depends on how fast your server and your connection is. If you expect a large number of users within a short time and you are not sure if your server can handle this check our forum for according topics about other users' experience.

...regarding survey size

Note: 'Survey size' refers to the maximum number of questions (and answers) in your survey - don't confuse this with the number of replies on your survey (there is no limitation on that). Theoretically there would also be no limit on the maximum number of questions/answers in LimeSurvey. But the database engine you are using has several limits. The most important one is the limit on the number of fields(columns) in the result table.

MySQL ISAM: The sum of the lengths of the VARCHAR and CHAR columns in a table may be up to 64KB.

MySQL InnoDB: Maximum number of 1000 columns

MS SQL Server 2000: Maximum number of 1024 columns

Postgres: Maximum number of 250-1600 columns depending on column types. The maximum number of columns can be quadrupled by increasing the default block size to 32k. See Installation FAQ and PostgreSQL FAQ.

Take care here: please think about what you do before you do it: an array of 10 x 10 items already costs you 100 columns. Rule of thumb: every item on the screen that can be filled in or selected costs one column!

The mySQL ISAM engine is the most tricky one (see mysql documentation for more information). As it allows only up to 65,535 bytes per row and utf8 characters can require up to three bytes per character the maximum may be only 21,844 characters (but this depends on your DB encoding).

How to increase the maximum number of columns in PostgreSQL

In case your survey contains too many questions you can define a different block size in PostgreSQL so it is possible to create more columns. This might be tricky because you have to recompile PostgreSQL and set BLCKSZ to a higher value, like 16kiB or 32kiB. Watch for the configuration option "--with-blocksize=BLOCKSIZE". For details see the archives of the PostgreSQL mailing list or ask there (pgsql-patches(at)postgresql(dot)org).

Fatal error: Allowed memory size

Depending on your server configuration you might run into memory problems being reported by an error like "Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 8388608 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 233472 bytes) in /path/to/htdocs/limesurvey/filename.php on line 7296".